This B2B marketing plan overview should help get you started drafting a plan of your own and give you some ideas on content and things to consider. This is not an exhaustive list so please feel free to add comments and offer ideas on any areas missed out.
B2B Marketing Plan
Situation analysis
What has happened in your market place over the last 12 month?
What is the market value estimated to be?
How does this compare to the previous year?
What are the growth rates?
What has caused this growth?
How have your prospects & customers needs / wants changed?
What are their key demands expected to be for this year?
Where does your company sit in the market place?
What is the perception of your brand / product & service offering?
Objectives
Make them smart.
Keep it simple.
You can get more specific later with each tactical activity having its own specific objectives.
Sample objective : To reach the sales target for 2008 of £XX million, company ABC should bring in £XXmillion in renewals, based on XX% renewal rate and £XX million in new business (including product A, service B and modules C,D & E). This requires 35% growth from 2007.
Strategy
What main things have to happen to reach your objectives?
i.e. the market’s perception of Company A must change to be considered for larger deals, the average order value must increase, Brand X must increase its share of voice in the marketplace etc.
Will you have a vertical or geographical strategy?
Is more targeted marketing required?
Will each sales person have a personal marketing plan for their regions/ vertical sectors.
Basically what will your over riding marketing message to the wider organisation (who don't want to know the nitty gritty of the marketing plan) on what you plan to do in the next year be?
Tactics
PR
Will you have an agency?
Will you manage in house?
Will you actively court press coverage and share of voice in your particular market place?
Who are the key press / journalists you need to know?
How will you distribute your PR messages?
How will you monitor PR success?
Will you enter any industry awards?
Will you nominate clients / partners for industry awards?
Exhibitions
What exhibition will you attend as visitors, speakers, exhibitors?
When and where are they?
Who will be exhibiting and visiting them?
Why have you chosen each one?
What will you get out of it? (sales, branding, exposure, competitor intel, thought leadership etc)
Events
Will you organise your own events or attend others?
Will you present at the event? / What will you present (thought leadership, products and services etc)
What is the objective of each event? (networking, sales, lead generation, branding, relationship building?)
Who will attend? (clients, prospects, competition, press, industry commentators?)
Direct Mail
Who will you target? (clients, partners, prospects, vertical sectors, geographic regions, industry wide etc)
How often will they run?
What will the message be?
What will the medium be? - print, email, etc
How will it be followed up?
How will you measure success?
Online marketing
Website
What is the objective of your website? (ecommerce, lead generation, self service, etc)
What do you want visitors to do on your site? (Make contact, find information easily, download, see advertising etc)
What are the calls to action on your site?
What would you consider a successful site visit?
SEO
How do you plan to improve your website optimisation?
How often will the website copy be updated?
How will you improve your organic search listings?
PPC
What will your paid search campaigns be?
How will you target your ppc campaigns? (with day/week parting, ad groups, geographic ad serving etc)
How often will you change campaigns / update ad copy?
Blogs
Will you run a blog?
Will you monitor / sponsor industry blogs?
Will you comment on relevant blogs?
Advertising
Print or online?
Which are the key publications?
What are your target market actually reading?
What will the essage of your adverts be?
Other
areas to consider if specific to you;
Memberships
Are there any industry associatoins you should join?
What are the real membership benefits?
Networking
Where are the networking opportunities for your sales / management / product development teams?
Are there any industry roundtables, seminars, forums, local or sector specific events your team should be attending?
Speaker opportunities
What guest speaker engagements are available? these will raise profiles, increase awareness in the marketing place, create thought leadership / perception of expertise for your company etc
Measurement and Reporting
What does success look like?
What will this marketing generate?
How will you report on activity and ROI? - Cost per lead, cost per sale, Roi per campaign, per marketing channel, per marketing source etc?
Budget
What is your budget?
What are the dates for your plan?
Who will be involved in its delivery?
Read more blog entries here
The paradox of insular language
7 months ago
